


What Makes Life Divine

by poisonedapple



Series: Bardic Inspiration [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Love at First Sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9112642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonedapple/pseuds/poisonedapple
Summary: It wasn't love at first sight, but then Scanlan had never really seen Pike in the first place.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between episode 58~62.
> 
> A draft was posted to tumblr a few weeks ago.

It's not like he fell in love with Pike at first sight.

Falling in love with her had been a choice, from the start.

It wasn't that she was beautiful - though Scanlan would be a liar if he said it hadn't been a prerequisite for his choice to love her, that he would never have considered her if not for her loveliness. He was ashamed of his own shallowness, but at least he'd admit it, if only to himself.

But no, it was her faith built upon second chances, in redemption, that drew him in. He'd had no intentions of converting to Sarenrae – the religious lifestyle wasn't really his style but Scanlan liked the idea of a woman who believed in second chances.

Perhaps that's where he went wrong, right from the start. Loving his own idea, rather than seeing her.

Scanlan, more than anything, wanted a second chance, a do-over of his entire life of regrets and mistakes and a life wasted.

And Pike had granted him that, with her kindly smile and gentle hands. She spurned his advances with tenderness and friendly affection, but she passed no judgment upon him and he told himself he'd found salvation in her and he loved her for it.

Or he thought he had.

In the wake of his revelation about his daughter, the revelation that he had one, Scanlan had described Pike's appearance: Hair the color of the sunset, eyes like waves that crash in the night; breasts, supple, firm…

He did not say get the chance to say that her hair was braided like a halo around the crown of her head, but he thought it, as well as that sometimes it was like she had feathered wings, she was so angelic, that her eyes always crinkled at the sides in constant smile, that in the summer time a constellation of freckles dusted the bridge of her nose.

His image of her had always been her in her loveliness, with a beatific smile, with rosy cheeks, and kind eyes, hands folded placidly at her lap if she wasn't cupping his face to imbue him with her healing light. He had thought that that was love, that she was salvation and deliverance and he wanted nothing more than to be loved by her. That if he was persistent yet patient, he would win his prize.

He may never have noticed there was so much more to her, if he hadn't been wondering how best to love and know and treasure another woman the way she deserved - his daughter, his Kaylie. He searched for the answer in Pike and watched her, testing the Gauntlets of Ogre Strength with reckless joy as she giggle-snorted, rubble and dust from her destruction caught in her hair as she high-fived Vex. He witnessed her devastated and tear-stained and scrambling to bring Grog back to life, how he'd beseeched her to bring him back and she had collected herself in seconds, spine straitening in resolve as her hands took hold of the last threads of Grog's life. She had winked at him once, with a puckish grin as she stumbled a man for calling her short and dismissing her for it. Scanlan remembered her as she was stammering and unsure as she responded to his proposal, eyes averted, and later confessing to betraying his trust by reading his letter but promising him everything he'd asked for and looking him straight in the eye as she did. He'd watched her aghast when she skinned her knees and laughing like she'd felt no better joy than falling down stairs with Grog's helmet rattling on her too small head.

And now, just the night before, Pike had stumbled outside naked and brazen and drenched with her own blood but brow furrowed in determination as she slayed Hotis.

The woman he'd chosen to love would do none of that, but then he'd only loved an idea of a beautiful and pious women and nothing else. Scanlan had never seen her because he never wanted to and instead he projected his own ideals upon her and saw nothing else. He'd never seen her for who she was, and it startled him to realize he'd never loved her. He wondered if she knew this.

Scanlan promised her right then, promised himself: to see her, to know her, to love her - as a good friend – as she deserved.

He had one evening before they separated and that was enough to start.

Pike was daring and rowdy and wrinkled nose as she belly-laughed as she hit him square in the face with mashed potatoes and stuffed a pea up his nose in the food fight that Grog and Keyleth had started. She was forlorn eyes, as she dutifully waved him and the rest of Vox Machina goodbye as they left for the Feywild and she stayed behind, again.

She was shimmering and bright as she sparked back into existence with them only moments later, self-conscious as she scuffed the ground with her feet and Scanlan was happy for her because she was shining armor and radiant and longing for danger. Pike was aching and sweet and one touch from her was to be warm for the rest of his life but that was divine magic and Pike possessed strength stronger than any magic because she was devastating in her love and care and anger and glee and beauty and sadness and sacrifice and desire and passion. Pike was a woman of edges and multitudes, not soft curves, and Scanlan was catching on her edges.

A hollowness settled into Scanlan when she flicked out of existence from the Feywild and he'd filled the nameless void with reading his book.

And then, days later, she'd flicked back in and he'd never felt such joy as he had in that moment.

He hadn't fallen in love with Pike at first sight, but then until that moment he'd never seen her.

The first time he sees her as she is, Scanlan knows.  He knows her and he knows this feeling.

"Ah," Scanlan thinks. "So this is love."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading - I just wanted to try and work out how Scanlan got from the earnest talk he'd had with Pike in episode 58 to how he greeted her in episode 62.


End file.
